Kral had clutched his wounded hand under the table. He knew it was more than mere hunger that drove these ravenous beasts. With heavy hearts, Kral and Tol’chuk had returned to the Painted Pony. At the inn, their arrival had been met with strange well-wishes and pats on the shoulders. When Kral had asked about the source of the commotion, the innkeeper had given him a knowing wink and told him to speak to their mate upstairs.
Mogweed had been waiting with the news: Their troupe had been graced with an invitation to perform at the Keep tonight. Kral’s first response was to dismiss it. They had no time to waste clowning for some pair of lordlings. But Mogweed’s arguments proved wise. Another day spent in fruitless questioning would get them no closer to Meric. But here was a chance to gain strong allies in their search for the ill’guard. Perhaps the lords would even offer a battalion of armed guards to accompany them.
The shape-shifter’s reasoning had won him over, but now Kral questioned his decision. He shook his head as his boots stomped across the drawbridge over the moat. The two guards stationed to either side of the Keep’s entrance looked as decorative as the fortifications. He could only hope that the lords employed more hardy stock inside the Keep than these two fanciful, thin-limbed guardsmen.
Dressed in dark blue, with flourishes of tufted lamb’s wool and even a spray of crane feathers, the pair of guards began a synchronized dance that involved much clicking of boot heels and slapping of sword sheaths. They ended this play with their swords crossed before the entrance to the Keep, as if this would truly stop Kral or Tol’chuk from entering the castle. Kral suspected even Mogweed could give this dandified pair a good fight.
Kral cleared his throat and spoke to the guards. “We come at the request of the lords of the Keep,” he said as introduction.
The two guards repeated the dance in reverse until the way ahead lay unbarred. “You are expected,” one of the guards intoned with exaggerated grandness.
The other guard continued the memorized litany. “One of the castle’s housemen awaits you beyond the gate to take you to the Musician’s Hall.”
Kral nodded and led the way through the massive wooden gates of the battlements. Tol’chuk and Mogweed followed.
“They be like puppets playing at warriors,” Tol’chuk grumbled, waving back toward the twin guards. “Only puppets be more real.”
Kral grunted his agreement as they passed under the battlements to reach the Keep’s yard. Paved in cobbles, the courtyard was at least neat and tidy. An orderly stable lay to one side, and a low-roofed stone barracks was on the other. Directly across the yard were steps that led up to the castle proper.
Like the battlements, the castle was clearly built for the comfort rather than the protection of its lords. The balconies and balustrades that adorned the front of the castle would all but invite the hooks and ladders of a marauding force, and the windows were wide and many, making for easy access into the heart of the castle.
Kral shook his head. This was no keep as much as it was a pretty plaything, a bauble to please the eye. Kral began to doubt the wisdom of this night’s plan. Surely there was no real support to be garnered from the lords of such a place.
Scowling, he met the tall, scrawny houseman who stood fixed in a half bow in the center of the yard. At Kral’s approach, the man straightened. Dressed in silks and slippers, the man’s perfume struck Kral’s nose before he was within three steps of the fellow.
Mogweed sneezed like a cannon.
The sudden noise seemed to awaken this lanky marionette. “Ah, you’ve come,” the man said graciously, one hand raised in solicitous greeting. His eyes ran over the three men. “We were perhaps expecting more performers?”
Kral kept his voice even. “I’m afraid a few are sick in bed. But we will manage.”
The man’s brows rose a bit, eying Kral’s bandaged right hand doubtfully. “Ah, good. Yes, yes, resourcefulness is a virtue.” He spun on a heel. “My name is Rothskilder. I will be your liaison with Lord Mycof and Lord Ryman. If you will follow me, I will take you to the hall where you may set up—” He glanced over his shoulder. “—and clean up before the lords’ attendance this evening.”
Mogweed had sidled forward. “You are most generous.”
Kral could not tell if the shape-shifter was honest or sarcastic. Mogweed’s tongue could be as slippery as the belly of an eel.
They followed Rothskilder to a small alley that lay between the barracks and the castle. Apparently circus folk did not use the main stair. They passed a wide side door propped open to the night. The familiar squabble and clink of a kitchen greeted them.
“Come, come,” their guide insisted, leading them into the commotion of this night’s dinner preparation.
Glancing around him, Kral wondered for a moment if dinner was included with their performance. The savory aroma of roasting beef and boiling potatoes almost made him forget about the true goal of this night. Even if they could not convince the lords to help, maybe they could at least get a meal of something other than their usual staple of salted fish.
Tol’chuk, too, seemed to drag as he passed through the kitchen. Kral caught the og’re staring at a rack of lamb spitted above glowing embers. Their eyes met, sharing their appreciation of the cooks’ skill. Too soon, they were led to a wide hall and away from the scents of the kitchen’s hearths.
With thoughts on his belly, Kral followed the slender figure of Rothskilder through the back halls of the Keep, the paths and byways of the servants who kept the castle running. The halls narrowed, and the ceilings lowered. Kral glanced to the poor construction of these dim halls. Apparently little was spent on the servant wings.
The man hummed and whistled as he led them deeper into the Keep.
“How much farther?” Mogweed asked, his breath sounding winded from the single crate he carried.
“Just a bit. I’m afraid only noble guests and their manservants are allowed in the main halls, so I must take you on a circuitous route to the Musician’s Hall. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
As they rounded a bend in the halls, the walls on the left side abruptly changed to rough blocks of stone. These were not mortared together but hewn and stacked.
The houseman must have noticed Kral pause by the wall. “Yes,” Rothskilder said, slowing his step and frowning at the stones. “This is the most ancient section of the Keep. Such crude construction.” He waved dismissively at the wall. “I don’t know why the craftsmen didn’t just tear it down when the castle was built.”
Kral, though, could not keep his eyes from the stones. Even as their guide continued forward, Kral lagged behind. Tol’chuk and Mogweed were soon a few steps ahead of him.
Kral raised a hand to the stone. His fingers trembled. His blood responded to the stones. He sensed the force throbbing forth from them. As a single finger touched the stone, his mind exploded with the ancient voices of dying men.
Man the fires, you good men! . . . The d’warves have breached the south wall! . . . Beware their lords! They come with black magicks! . . . Archers to the west! . . . The bloodstone! The bloodstone!
Kral weaved on his feet. He reached to the wall with his injured hand to support himself. It was a mistake. With its touch, his mind was taken from him.
The castle hall vanished, and Kral found himself alone atop a high tower. A sickle moon looked down upon him, offering little light. But a reddish glow lit the horizon on all sides as Kral spun around. He ran to the tower’s edge and leaned over the parapet. Below, a river glowed red with a thousand siege fires. Cries of the tortured climbed with the smoke from the fires. Kral lifted his hands from the stone of the parapet. They were wet with blood. The whole tower was drenched in the blood of the slain.
A noise, a scrape of heel on stone, sounded behind him.
Dreading to look, but unable to resist, Kral turned.
In the center of the tower crouched a naked figure. It stood no taller than Kral’s belt buckle but was as heavy as the large mountain man. Kral kne
w this creature. Here squatted a monster from the past. He remembered the oft-repeated tales of the bloody D’warf Wars, like the story of Mulf, the ax master who had held the Pass of Tears for an entire day and night against the d’warf armies. It was said these sickly creatures had driven his ancestors from their homes in the far north, destroying and forever fouling their ancient mountain homeland, casting them forever as nomads among the lands of man. Legend around the clan fires was that only after the last d’warf was dead could Kral’s people ever return home.
Kral reached for his ax. He knew that these fires and screams were from centuries past, that this was all an ancient nightmare trapped in the blood-soaked stones and that only the magick in his blood allowed him access to this ancient tragedy. Still, dream or not, he would kill this d’warf.
On the tower, the d’warf leered at him. “Now who are you?” it spat out with a sneer. A black stone sphere spun in the air over the d’warf’s shoulders. Bloody fire crackled along its surface. In brighter spats of the stone’s flames, a different scene, ghostly and vague, cracked through the dream. A man hung in chains in some dungeon, his skin blistered, his body wracked with burns.
Somehow Kral knew this scene was not a part of the ancient nightmare. It was happening now! This d’warf was not a figment of the past, but as real as the mountain man himself—and Kral suddenly knew the man who hung in those chains.
“Meric!” he gasped, raising his ax.
Kral’s outburst startled the d’warf. A moment of uncertainty crept into his sunken eyes. “Where are—?”
Suddenly the scene was wrenched away. Kral found himself back in the castle’s hallway. Tol’chuk leaned over him and lifted Kral to his feet. Mogweed stood nearby, a hand raised nervously to his throat.
Rothskilder, their guide, hovered a step away. “Is he sick, too? Like those others in your troupe?” The fear of contagion was trembling in his voice.
Kral cleared his throat and pushed free of the og’re’s arms. He raised a hand to his feverish brow. “No,” Kral said. “I simply tripped and struck my head.”
Suspicion bright in his eyes, Rothskilder nodded and turned. “It is not far to the hall.”
After a narrow-eyed glance at Kral, Mogweed followed their guide. Tol’chuk kept even with Kral, obviously concerned he might collapse again. “What happened?” he whispered as low as an og’re could manage.
Kral studied the rough-hewn stone wall. They passed a door of beaten brass that stood in the center of this ancient section of the tower. Kral nodded to it and walked past it without another glance. “Meric is beyond that door.”
Tol’chuk stumbled a step at his declaration but caught up to Kral. “What are we to do?”
“When the time is right, we’ll tear this place down to its roots,” he growled.
“What’s down there?” Tol’chuk asked cautiously. He seemed to sense the seething fury in the mountain man.
Kral pictured the squat toad of a creature. “Something blacker than the hearts of demons.”
A GENTLE TAPPING at their door drew the twins’ eyes. A raised voice spoke with measured respect from beyond the threshold. Their manservant Rothskilder knew better than to expect them to answer, but he was forbidden from entering uninvited. “As you requested, my lords, I have made your guests comfortable in the Musician’s Hall.”
Mycof glanced at his brother. “As usual, dear brother, you were right. They have not fled the city.” Mycof straightened the lay of his green silk robes. “Pity that we must foul our own fingers with such unpleasantness.”
Ryman snugged the sash of office over one shoulder, positioning the crest of their house over his heart. One finger traced the two snarling animals. “It is our duty. House Kura’dom has always had to dirty their hands to keep Shadowbrook in the family. Once again, we protect what is rightfully ours.”
“And protect the purity of the hunt,” Mycof said, a trace of lust in his voice. Twilight was near, and the nightly ritual already called to his blood.
“Yes,” Ryman said proudly, throwing his shoulders back, “it must stay in the family.”
Mycof loved it when his brother waxed noble. He touched his crest with two fingers. “To House Kura’dom.”
“To the blood of our people,” Ryman finished, mirroring his brother’s stance. It was an ancient family slogan.
Mycof’s mouth grew dry, and the slightest tremble shook his shoulders. The blood of Shadowbrook was their heritage! How dare the d’warf ask them to share the hunt with strangers! “To the blood of our people,” Mycof repeated. A bright bead of perspiration stood on his brow.
“Calm yourself, Brother. You mustn’t let fury rule you. The best plans are carried out with a cold heart.”
Mycof sighed, releasing his anger. Ryman, as usual, was wise. He forced a relaxed pose. “All is prepared then?”
“Of course.” Ryman led the way toward the door.
Mycof followed behind his older brother. As they proceeded across their room, he studied the fall of the robe and cloak about Ryman’s shoulders. His brother’s white hair was striking against the dark green of the cloak, perfect in form and movement.
Ryman opened the room’s door to find Rothskilder bowed before the threshold.
“My lords,” their manservant intoned, awaiting their order.
“Lead the way,” Ryman instructed, his lips barely moving.
Mycof knew his brother, like himself, found it distasteful to speak to another. Their voices were meant only for each other’s ears. When they must speak, they whispered, sharing as little of their voices as possible with their servants.
Rothskilder knew their manners and engaged them in no conversation as he led the way toward the Musician’s Hall. Still, nervousness kept their guide’s tongue wagging. “I have the guards posted, and the exits secured as you ordered.”
As the twins walked shoulder to shoulder, Ryman glanced to his brother as if to say I told you so. Everything was in order.
In acknowledgment, Mycof bowed his chin ever so slightly. Still, Mycof asked their manservant, “We will not be disturbed?”
His whispered voice, unexpected, startled Rothskilder. The man almost glanced toward Mycof, then caught himself and continued down the hall. “Just as you requested, this is a private audience,” he said humbly. “You will not be disturbed.”
Behind Rothskilder, the twins glided like two silk ghosts, their slippered feet moving in step together, their green cloaks swishing in unison as they proceeded.
Neither twin spoke, but each knew the other’s thoughts. Mycof’s and Ryman’s eyes met briefly as they turned the last corner. Both brothers already had their fingers touching the hilts of the poisoned daggers hidden in sheaths strapped to their wrists.
The House of Kura’dom knew how to protect what was theirs.
LORD TORWREN CROUCHED in the mud of the cellar. Near his toes, the ebon’stone talisman lay half sunk in the muck. Its polished surface no longer ran with flames. After the axman’s blunt intrusion into the sphere’s dreamscape, Torwren had been unable to maintain the concentration necessary to keep the fires lit. Who was this strange hulking man? The d’warf had recognized him as the elemental who had escaped last night’s trap, but by the dancing gods, how had he entered the stone? The talisman was bound only to Torwren. No one but he should be able to enter it freely.
Nearby, the elv’in prisoner groaned in his shackles.
“Yes, yes,” he waved in distraction at the wracked man, “I’ll get back to you in a moment.” He had only begun to forge the elv’in’s spirit. There was still much left to do, but the oddity of the intruder kept Torwren distracted.
“You . . . you will never have me,” the prisoner gasped weakly.
Torwren glanced in his direction. A seed of an idea began to form. “Meric, wasn’t it?” he said, stepping toward the prisoner.
The elv’in’s face darkened. His eyes grew colder, and blood dripped from his cracked lips.
“It seems that a friend
of yours is prying where he shouldn’t,” he said.
Sullenly, Meric lowered his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The other elemental, the bearded giant.” Torwren saw the glint of recognition in his prisoner’s eye. “Tell me about him.”
“I’ll tell you nothing.” Meric spat in his direction.
“The stone can make you talk,” Torwren bluffed. “But the fire’s touch won’t be as pleasant as it has been thus far.” Once the elv’in was converted to the ill’guard, he would be unable to keep any secret from the d’warf, but the process took too long; Torwren wanted to discover this other elemental’s secrets now. He smiled warmly at Meric, satisfied that his statement had paled the elv’in’s features. The threat of pain was often worse than the experience itself. He remained silent and let the elv’in dwell on his words.
Finally, in a trembling voice that lacked the fire of a moment ago, the prisoner gasped, “Take that cursed stone of yours and—”
“Now, now, is that any way to speak to your host?” Torwren ran a finger along the elv’in’s exposed ribs.
The prisoner’s skin shuddered at his touch. The elv’in could not keep a small moan from slipping past his lips. The display of weakness unmanned the prisoner; Torwren saw despair in the hang of his head.
He stepped back and went to reach for the stone half sunk in the mud: Just a push and the man would be singing like a split-tongued raven. But as soon as his fingers touched the sphere, Torwren knew something was wrong. He gasped and snatched his hands away. The stone’s surface, usually warm with its inner fires, was as cold as the dirt of a winter’s grave. It felt as if he had touched his own frozen and dead heart. The d’warf shuddered and backed from the stone.